So WTF happened - what was the offical word on the women's race?

It appears that the officials and commentator knew absolutely nothing about the teams competing. It was announced over the loudspeaker that Providence was the official winner, long after Oregon had initially been shown on the board as unofficial winner.

Even a cursory look to understand the discrepancy would have revealed that Pappas had been dropped out of the 'official' results. Pathetic.

Great work David , you understand the sport , report it well , support it well and yes you may be runnings true journalistic savior ! Nothing emotional , facts.

Im hoping this site can learn from you and your approach to reporting.

I wasn't trying to imply that David was incorrect. I was just pointing out that there had to be more than one DQ. I knew that Karen Harvey had talked about one of her runners being left out so maybe that adds up.

But really I think what is left unanswered still is - how does this happen?

I think I may write an editorial about this. But this and the NYC cancellation show that the 'elite' side of of the sport - which is the whole sport in our minds (versus the fitness activity) is in real trouble.

For incorrect results to go up shows that many people involved are people not passionate about running and are just people working, adding up the results and announcing it. It's not people that are passionate about it, understand it, etc. I mean if I'm in the tent - i'd see the unofficial results with Oregon winning, then see Providence go up and immediately ask - what the hell is going on here? But if you are some NCAA person who was forced to work a Saturday in Louisville KY, because you forgot to bring Mark Emmert his coffee on two straight days then you just read/post what you are handed. It's just another event that you work on.

I always said for years that I could cover the Boston marathon better by watching from my computer in Flagstaff, AZ than the guy in the race truck who was next to the runners because the guy in the race truck didn't really get what was going on.

But a larger point is people shouldn't take the elite side of the sport for granted as we are very much marginalized. This and NYC's cancellation proves it. In terms of NYC, I couldn't believe the elite race would be cancelled. The Super Bowl would never be cancelled - it would just be postponed. But Running is just a fitness activity in many people's minds.

NCAA XC is just some minor sport that the NCAA has to run off - whether it's done correctly or not is no biggie. Just don't spend too much money on it.

I'm still not sure if I ever heard on the telecast who actually won the women's race. Did they mention it when they came back and started the men's race? I mean what a joke. How do you televise an event (even on the Internet) and not tell us who won it?

But again - that's not really important to the NCAA or ADs. They think "Let's just have xc just to say that we have it. Hopefully there are a few smart kids that generate some good PR and eventually make the Olympics for even more good PR.'

Meanwhile, we'll be trying to figure out how we can leave our long-standing conference rivalries behind all in the name of generating a few million more in tv revenue which will just be wasted on 10-year contracts for football coaches. Who cares how far the kids have to travel?

rojo wrote:

The Super Bowl would never be cancelled - it would just be postponed.

I can 100% guarentee you that there are circumstances that would lead to a cancellation of the Super Bowl. Hell if the lockout had kept up there wouldn't have been one last year.

So it looks like each runner had two chips, one on each of their shoes and timing devices in the front and back bib#s, plus both L & R hip #s??? So how do runners get missed? How do the officials not count the number of finishers per team before releasing results?

You mean the Flash Results that guessed about and posted an Olympic Trials qualifier, then took that away from her, and ruined her reputation because of the pain she was in from that trauma. Yes, good idea.

Although it should be OK since they "scientifically" guessed using their vast experience of previous guesses based on the company's own account of the situation.

Seriously, "guessing" at an Olympic Trials....shameful.

This board mentions the NY Marathon and the D1 womens race, but this is consistently going on now which is an even deeper problem (not for the general public, but for track/xc fans & participants). The D3 meet, the prevous weeks South Region qualifying meet, the OLYMPIC TRIALS.

Sad indeed.....but I feel like most of the timing people ARE lifers of the sport and that should be great, it just seems like they aren't taking the care anymore about the sport that they once loved, now it is all about winning the bids for publicity and getting the $$. The egos are taking over their humility they once had.

David Monti. wrote:

So, I handed my BlackBerry to a coach (sorry, didn't get his name), who photographed the first page of the women's results for me. In that photo, you can see that Alexi was included, but that Amanda Winslow was not. I didn't know that Amanda had been missed until Coach Harvey told me that when I spoke with her a few minutes later. She told me that she had protested and that Amanda had been added back to the results after initially being listed as disqualified.

Someone posted a photo of that page on flotrack, showing Pappas but not Winslow. The bizarre thing was that some girl who finished nearly last was in Winslow's slot. How does that happen?

I heard that the first issue was that the timing company missed chips. So they had to go back and watch the video tape of the finish to input athletes. This caused part of the problems with the initial results.

The second issue was a disqualification between Oregon and Florida State. From what I heard there was a spat between some members of the two teams in the finish area. Which led to some of those team members being disqualified and Providence being announced the champion.

Then protests were filed by Oregon and Florida State to get them back into the results which led to Oregon being re-named the champion.

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?!?!?

You certainly "heard" a lot. Give us some specifics. From whom did you "hear" all this about "disqualification"s.."spat", and so forth? As someone who was there at the finish line, methinks you have a better sense of imagination than hearing.

I think that the protest was because the runners were missing from the results, not because they had been yanked from the results.

Since there has been absolutely no credible evidence that a fight/DQ scenario developed, this seems very (very) likely to be wrong. My guess is that someone came up with a hypothesis as to why the runners were missing and several people ran with it as though it was reported.

????????????????? anybody know thanks never have the race at this course again please wow what an utter mess :(